Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and Wheat Gluten

Currently, MSG is used as a food additive, and is commonly marketed as a flavor enhancer under the trade names Ajinomoto, Vetsin, Accent, and Tasting Powder throughout the world.  Though once made predominantly from wheat gluten, today it is made from a bacterial fermentation process using starch, sugar beets, sugar cane, or molasses.  And although once associated exclusively with foods in Chinese restaurants, MSG is now used by most fast-food chains (especially in America) and in many foodstuffs--especially processed foods.  MSG is also commonly found in prepared stocks known as stock cubes or bouillon cubes, condiments such as barbecue sauce and salad dressings, canned, frozen, and dried prepared foods, common snack foods such as flavored jerky, artificially flavored potato chips (and crisps), flavored tortilla chips, and in popular powdered seasoning mixtures.  About 1.5 million tons of MSG was sold in 2001, with 4% annual growth for each successive year.  Read more . . .

Feet Worship and the Origins of Reflexology

The oldest documented depiction of the practice of reflexology is a pictograph dated to 2500 to 2300 BCE, found in the tomb of a popular Egyptian physician known as Ankmahor.  Records show that during his lifetime, Ankmahor enjoyed an unusually high societal status, second only to the Pharaoh.  The scene depicts two dark-skinned men working on the feet of two men with lighter skin.  Above the scene are hieroglyphs reading: ‘Do not let it be painful’ to which one attendant replies, ‘I do as you please.’  Due to the physical positioning of the men, the color scheme, and the inscription, Egyptian scholars are able to interpret the pictogram as illustrating the act of using the foot to cure the patients of illness: essentially, "reflexology."  It is hypothesized that although reflexology does not appear to have been in continual practice since ancient Egyptian times, the knowledge of curing ailments through stimulation of the feet has been used by many cultures around the world including the Aborigine of Australia, modern Aztec of Mexico, Native Americans, and several cultures of the Middle East.  Read more . . .

The Busiest Intersection in the World: Tokyo's Hachiko Square

A key component of Tokyo’s transportation system is Shibuya Station, the third busiest train station in all Tokyo (after Shinjuku and Ikebukuro), handling over 2 million commuters daily who routinely travel between the city center and the suburbs to the south and west.  A pivotal feature of the main JR/Tokyu/Tokyo Metro complex is its six exits which open onto Hachiko Square, a rectangular space said to be the busiest “simultaneous pedestrian crosswalk” in the world, seeing approximately one million people each day, with as many as 10,000 people crossing during a single cycle of the light.  Read more . . .